Well, I agree with you -- it's a boondoggle which is going to get some of our best pilots killed because of cheap contractors (Anybody else remember the Pentagon saying it was going to be cheaper than the F-22 project? Also, how is it supposed to replace the A-10 for low-speed, long-duration loitering over a battlefield while taking heavy damage if it's made light to go Mach 2?).

That said, it's an economic reality that the project is being done in 46 of 50 states and "liberal" (as in not-tight, rather than left-wing) figures put it at about 140,000 jobs nationwide. As nobody wants to be the guy who sent 140,000 people to the unemployment website, what should we replace the project with? I'm a fan of the "Bitching is easy, but fixing is fun" line of thinking. I'm tired of people pointing fingers (not here, but in my world in general), and I'd rather be part of the solution.

Let's see... space probes are in the same line of thought, plus we spend a bunch of money on something that might actually be beneficial to everybody, not just a bored general someplace. We could always upgrade our rail system with separate passenger lines and new high-speed trains, but not sure the eminent domain would be a good thing to make people happy (existing right-of-ways turn too tightly for 200mph bullet trains, or so I've been told by the guys who build the Acela system). How about some kind of fancy clean-burning incinerators for energy production on crap we were going to throw away to begin with?

Any other good ones? I'm planning on writing at least some of them up and sending them to my congressman (who represents an area with a Lockheed plant) and my senators.